“Yeah, that,” I say, grateful she knew what I wasgoing for, even as her answer makes my cheeks feel hot. “So, you’ve been out for a long time?” She’s been out the whole time I’ve known her, but she only moved to Stratford from Connecticut two years ago.
“Oh, yeah. Since, like, fifth grade. And even then, it’s not like I really needed to come out. My room was a shrine to Wonder Woman and I don’t even read comics.” She grins. “Wasn’t tough for my mom and stepdad to read between the lines.”
“And Taylor?”
“Pretty much the same. They introduced themselves with their pronouns the instant we met, so I’ve never known them to ID as anything else.”
Well, that was lovely for the two of them, but not particularly helpful for me.
Or maybe it is. Maybe this is making clear that I’m blowing things way out of proportion. If being bi means always knowing, well, that isn’t me. The only girls on my bedroom walls are my friends, and I’m certainly not into any of them that way.
That settles it. I’m straight. Just like I always thought.
I wait for the feeling of a weight lifting from my shoulders, but it never comes.
Chapter Seventeen
NOW
“Who has the highlighter?”
I pass the compact to Gia and get back to focusing on my eyebrows, which, despite having been waxed the day before, look like they could use another pluck or twelve. Or maybe they’re overplucked. I can’t keep up with eyebrow fashion.
“The liquid, not the powder,” Gia says impatiently, and I shrug. Homecoming has arrived way too fast, and despite having a great dress with an awesomely poufy tulle skirt and enough sequins in the bodice to put the night sky to shame, I’m having an impossible time getting excited for the primping portion of the evening.
“Here, here.” Kiki hands her the bottle and shoves me gently out of the way so she can examine her earring options in the mirror. “Which ones do you guys like better?”
I scrutinize her lobes. Kiki almost never swaps out the pearl studs her parents gave her for her seventeenth birthday, so it takes a second to adjust to anything sparkly in them. “The dangly ones are definitely more interesting, but the diamond studs are classy.”
“Okay, so do I wanna be interesting or classy?” she asks, turning her head from side to side.
“You’re always interesting,” Shannon says sweetly. “Maybe try classy for once.”
The rest of us crack up at her burn, including Kiki. “Better not mess with what’s already working for me,” she says, taking out the diamond and handing it to Shannon. “Classy is boring.”
Shannon puts the studs back in her jewelry box, this massive antique thing her parents bought her for getting a five on the AP U.S. History exam. Half her room is filled with little trophies like that—a Kate Spade bag for her first all-A report card, a fancy ballerina painting for landing the principal role in her fifth-grade recital, a pair of Louboutins from when her team came in first in Model UN. To her credit, Shannon always shares—diamond studs, pricey makeup, and even the fancy barrette I’m wearing to hold my curls off my face.
“I bet your date will look classy,” Shannon says, sweeping a minuscule clump of mascara from her otherwise perfect lashes.
I snort. “By date do you mean the podcast app on her phone?”
The other three girls exchange glances. “Pretty sure she means her actual date,” says Gia, carefully rubbing the liquid highlighter onto her browbones.
“I’m sorry, what?” I cross my arms over my chest, the pink sequins that cover the strapless bodice digging into my skin. “Since when doyou, Akiko Takayama, have adate? And how am I only hearing this five seconds before we get into the limo?”
“It’s no big deal, drama queen,” she says with a snort. “I’m going with Jasmine.”
Hmm, I thought my hearing was OK, but it’s clear something is malfunctioning, because there’s no way that I was just informed on the night of the dance that Jasmine Killary is going to be in my limo as one of my best friends’ dates. “I’m sorry, you’re going withwho?”
There’s a collective whoosh of air intake as both Shannon and Gia suck in their breath. “Wow, Lar,” says Gia, flicking an imaginary piece of dust from her silver cocktail dress, “it’s the twenty-first century. This is really not a big deal.”
It takes me a few seconds to realize that Gia fucking Peretti is givingmea lecture on homophobia, and this is all so twisted and ridiculous that I could die. Next to her, Shannon is shaking her head in similar disbelief and it takes everything in me not to scream.
How is this my life?
I exhale sharply and clap my hands together. “Okay, let’s try this again. Kiki! I am very happy for you that you have a date! And it’s cool that it’s a girl! I just don’t understand how the fact that you have a date—of any gender—somehow did not come up before now. With me, at least.”
She shrugs. “It was kind of last minute, but shewasn’t going with anyone, and I was gonna be seventh-wheeling with you guys anyway, so.”
